The War of the Magi
by Lassarina Aoibhell
Summary: Final Fantasy VI. This story explores the War of the Magi as told through the eyes of those who lived it: the Espers. Constructive criticism is encouraged and appreciated.
1. Starlet

~*~Chapter One~*~

~*~Starlet~*~

She didn't know why they stared.

No one would tell her why they ran.

Starlet huddled in a corner of the playground, biting her lip hard. She wouldn't cry. Mum would be angry if she cried.

_Why do they run away from me?_

Mum said they ran away because she was a bad girl. But she never meant to be bad. She made mistakes. That's what the teacher said. But Mum said she was a bad girl and must be punished.

"Starlet?"

She looked up quickly, automatically making sure her sleeves covered the bruises on her arms.

"Why are you over here all by yourself?" The teacher crouched down next to her.

"They ran away again." She bit her lip harder until she tasted blood. _She would not cry._

The teacher's mouth pulled into a thin line, like Mum's did when she was angry. Starlet braced her small body and waited.

Instead of the blow she expected, she felt the teacher's arm come very gently around her shoulders.

"Come on, Starlet. I think it's past time I took you to meet a friend of mine." The teacher stood up and held out her hand.

Cautiously Starlet stood up. The teacher took her into the center of town, to a large white building with a pretty, colourful sign outside. She couldn't read the words on it yet, but she liked the colours.

"We're going inside, all right?" the teacher said gently, pointing at the carved white door.

Starlet nodded, wide-eyed, and followed the teacher inside.

For a child of five, the room was overwhelming. There were all kinds of people inside. Some were crying, some sat silently, and some rushed around quickly. Unlike the small-scale furniture at the school, here the furnishings were large and comfortable, in all kinds of soft colours. There didn't seem to be many children, either.

"Have you brought us another one, Lucrecia?" A tall woman dressed in a long white gown stood smiling down at Starlet. Shyly she hid behind the teacher.

"I think she might be..." The teacher gestured slightly. Starlet peered out, green eyes wide beneath a tangled mass of dark hair.

"Well, we'll have to see, won't we? What's your name, little one?" The tall woman crouched down so she was on a level with Starlet.

"Starlet." She looked at this woman curiously. Her eyes were grey like Mum's, but not all red and swollen, and she was smiling instead of scowling. She smelled nice too, like flowers. Not nasty like Mum.

"I'm Delaz," the woman said, smiling kindly. "Would you like to come with me, Starlet? I think we have some cookies in the back for special little girls."

She thought for a moment. Mum said she wasn't to take anything from strangers. But the teacher was smiling and nodding. If the teacher said it was okay...then maybe she could? She nodded uncertainly.

The woman smiled and picked her up. Starlet whimpered when Delaz's arm pressed against one of her bruises.

"What's this?" Eyes narrowing, Delaz pushed Starlet's sleeves up. Her mouth pressed into that thin line and she looked at Starlet, her grey eyes no longer quite as warm. "Where did you get this, sweetheart?"

"I fell. I'm clumsy." Mum said that was what she was to say if anyone saw her bruises.

"I see." Delaz was quiet for a moment. "Let's get you those cookies, all right?" she said then, starting briskly off toward the back of the room.

When Starlet was settled in the kitchen with two chocolate-chip cookies and a glass of milk, Delaz left the room quickly and came back with another girl, older than Starlet, with short, curly blonde hair and pretty brown eyes. "This is the start of your training, Anya," Delaz said quietly. "How to heal bruises."

Anya nodded.

Delaz knelt on the floor next to Starlet, gently pushing up her sleeve again. She rested her fingertips against the large purple bruise. Blue light started to gather around her hand. The bruise was tingling. Starlet stared, her cookies forgotten. The light got brighter, and the bruise faded away. Delaz left her hand there a moment longer, then carefully pulled Starlet's sleeve back down. "Anya, watch Starlet for a moment, will you?" she said briskly as she stood up.

"Okay." Anya settled into the chair across the table and started talking cheerfully.

Delaz walked out of the kitchen and shut the door carefully. Lucrecia was waiting, not so patiently by the look in her eyes. "My room," Delaz said, leading the way.

Lucrecia was silent until the door closed behind them. "Delaz, I brought her here because I thought--"

"I know perfectly well why you brought her here. And yes, she's a healer." Delaz rubbed her eyes tiredly. "Get her away from her mother and bring her back here to me." The healer looked up, an unusually fierce expression in her usually calm and gentle eyes. "She's ours now. We'll take care of her."

"What do I tell the mother?"

"Tell her anything. I don't care. Pay the creature off if you have to, I'll give you the money back. Just _get Starlet out of there."_

Lucrecia raised an eyebrow. "You're serious."

"Dead serious."

"Her mother is half-Mage."

"I protect my healers, Luce. No one is going to abuse that little girl again. Ever." Delaz's eyes glittered with intensity.

Lucrecia studied her longtime friend for a long moment, then nodded. "All right."

~*~


	2. Phoenix

~*~Chapter Two~*~

~*~Phoenix~*~

Starlet and two other students were the only ones in the healers' house when two men came in carrying a third, who was bleeding profusely. "He needs a healer," one of the men gasped. "I've got coin, but if something isn't done soon..."

"Nina, go find Delaz! Starlet, help me!" Lance, the new student, sprinted for the healing table.

_"Lance!"_ Starlet hissed at him as she followed him. _"We're apprentices!"_

"We're the only ones here," he hissed back. "We can at least stop the bleeding till Delaz gets back!"

"If Nina can even find her!"

"Look Star, you're a healer, dammit. You're sworn to ease pain. Now _stand by your oath!"_ Lance snarled as he snapped a fresh cover over the healing table. Starlet opened her mouth, stared at him, and closed it again as the two men set their friend on the table.

"I'm sorry but you'll have to leave the room," she said automatically. Lance was already stripping away the makeshift bandages. Starlet's stomach heaved at the sight of the vicious wounds. _Healing is not for the faint of heart._ She couldn't remember where she'd heard it, but whoever it was had definitely known what they were talking about.

The two men looked uneasy at leaving their friend in the care of two teenagers. Starlet pulled herself up to her full height of four feet eleven inches and put her hands on her hips. "If you want him healed, then _get out!"_

They left, reluctantly. Starlet turned and saw Lance carefully examining the wounds. "Lance...?"

He looked up, his face grim. "He's almost gone."

Starlet brushed the tips of her fingers over the man's forehead and knew Lance was right. "What do we do?" she murmured, feeling defeated.

"Just...try to back me up," Lance said brusquely.

"What?"

Instead of answering, he rested his fingertips lightly against the man's temples. Starlet laid her fingertips on his wrist, "listening" carefully to his heartbeat with her power. It was slowing down. There wasn't enough blood left for his heart to pump through his body, and the shock of his wounds was causing it to falter.

She could sense Lance's power starting to flow through the man's veins. Unlike Delaz's light, which was cool blue, or her own softly pearlescent light, Lance's power was brilliant, glittering gold, like powerful sunlight. Right now he was reaching for the heart, bolstering it with his power. She felt the heartbeat stop.

That was it, then.

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than a brilliant sunburst of power flooded into the man's body, dazzling her senses and physically unbalancing her. She grabbed for the edge of the table with her free hand, "watching" in shock as Lance forced the heart to start beating again, poured more power and still more into it until it again beat regularly, if far too slowly. Gradually the onslaught of power eased.

She knew Lance hadn't spoken--no healer did when they were in the healing trance--but somehow she sensed what he wanted her to do. She substituted her power for his, holding most of it in reserve and using just enough to keep his heart beating.

Starlet lost all sense of self. Her body might be standing beside the healing table, but she was inside the man's body. She had become that concentrated white glow. She willed his heart to echo the steady beat of her own.

The other power, the bright gold light, had begun to divide itself, ministering to the most devastating wounds first. The others were merely scratches and could be dealt with after the worst damage was repaired. Collapsed veins and lungs were restructured. Muscles were knit back together. Shattered bones were carefully reshaped. The heartbeat became stronger, and her power wasn't needed to ensure it anymore. She turned her attention to the lesser wounds, her healing light flowing around them and melding torn flesh back into a solid whole.

When they were sure that they'd finished the healing, they pulled themselves out of the trance, only to find Delaz standing at the foot of the table, glaring at them both.

"Bed. Now," she snapped.

Lance was swaying on his feet. Starlet was exhausted, and so dizzy she didn't know if she could walk that far. Delaz looked at them, sighed, and called to Nina.

"Get cots set up in here, before we have to heal _them."_ For all her obvious irritation, Delaz's hands were gentle when she framed Starlet's face with her fingertips. "You did well. Now sleep," she said quietly, gently pushing Starlet toward the cot Nina had just set up.

Starlet had barely lain down before she fell fast asleep.

~*~

It was full dark when she awoke. The first thing she was aware of was a definite emptiness in her stomach.

The second was the fact that Lance was sitting on the edge of his cot, watching her.

She sat up slowly, still feeling a little dizzy. He kept staring at her as though she were a patient with some curious condition he'd never encountered before.

"How did you know what I needed you to do?" he asked at last, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"I--I don't know. I was monitoring him...and then..." She shrugged helplessly.

"You were both touching the patient at the same time, both using your healer's skills," Delaz said from the doorway. "It's not common, but it's possible." She walked in and handed each of them a full bowl of stew. "Don't ask questions, eat," she ordered when Lance opened his mouth.

"Yes ma'am," he murmured.

Starlet was too hungry to bother asking questions until she'd devoured the contents of her bowl. Lance ate hungrily, but he kept starting to ask questions. Every time Delaz saw his mouth open without food heading toward it, she glared at him until he started eating again.

When they were done, Delaz perched on the edge of the healing table and stared at them both expressionlessly. "By rights, I ought to kick you two out for attempting a full-out healing when you're still only apprentices," she remarked quietly. "But I won't. Which of you restarted that man's heart?"

Silently Starlet pointed at Lance. Lance pulled his shoulders straight, looking like he expected a reprimand and was determined to endure it with his head up and an expressionless face.

Delaz stared at him for a long moment. "This afternoon, you two saved the life of the Mage Crown Prince."

"What?!" they yelped simultaneously.

"I didn't know it was possible to make a person's heart start beating after it had stopped," Delaz said absently. "How did you...?"

"I..." Lance spread his hands helplessly. "I just...kept putting more power into it..."

Delaz regarded him unblinkingly for another seemingly endless minute, then spread her hands and muttered something about teenagers thinking they knew everything.

"We had to do something," Lance growled, his face drawing into a scowl. "We could at least _try!"_ His defiance faded under the continuing icy grey stare. With a sigh, he stared at the floor, and didn't see the older healer's face relax into a smile.

"I think you need a new name," Delaz said as she stood up. "I think we're going to have to start calling you Phoenix, because you bring people back from death."

"Phoenix," Starlet repeated, studying him with bright green eyes. "It suits you."

"Named after a damn _bird,"_ he muttered as he stood up and started to take his bowl to the kitchen.

Starlet could only giggle.

Delaz shook her head and smiled. It was nice to know that Starlet could act like any other thirteen-year-old girl once in a while.


	3. Siren

~*~Chapter Three~*~

~*~Siren~*~

"Healers are a bunch of goody-two-shoes weaklings." Sara smirked.

Starlet glanced around discreetly. Lance was still on the other side of the field, and she didn't want to be running to him for help every ten minutes anyway. Nina was nowhere to be seen--off snuggling her newest boyfriend, no doubt.

And there wasn't a single teacher in sight.

Great.

Starlet turned her gaze back to the other girl. "Healers provide a service. You just sit around spending your daddy's money," she sneered. "And if not for healers, your mother wouldn't even be alive today." She had been in the house the day Sara's mother was brought in, suffering from a wasting disease. She had even been in the room when Delaz healed her.

Sara flinched slightly, then slapped Starlet across the face.

Starlet shifted, bracing herself for a fight. At eighteen, she had finally grown into the early promise of height. She was five feet, nine inches tall, and slender. A wild cascade of dark brown hair made a mass of waves and curls well past her waist. Her eyes were still the same bright green, dominating a pale, triangular face with slashing cheekbones. She had been a student in Delaz's healing house for thirteen years, and had never ceased to be grateful to the older woman for rescuing her from her birth mother. As far as she was concerned, Delaz _was_ her mother.

But she was in school now, far from the comfort of Delaz's house, and Sara was determined to make her life miserable. The other girl was also tall, with streaming pale-blonde hair, and was prone to dress in clothing that very definitely pushed at the edges of the school's decency code. Today it was a red shirt tailored to fit like a second skin, with a neckline that dipped much farther than it should have. Black leather pants that left nothing to the imagination--and there was plenty about her figure to provoke imagination. Three-inch heels brought her to a total height of six foot one. She was staring down at Starlet, a cold smirk twisting her otherwise lovely features.

"Poor little Starlet," she mocked, "the healer's charity student. You don't belong with the rest of us. You never did."

Starlet couldn't very well refute that, since all of it was true. Instead, she tilted up her chin and met Sara's gaze. "At least I don't shame my mother by acting like a slut."

"Your mother is a drunkard!"

"My mother," Starlet said in a low, dangerous voice, "is the Healer Delaz. And she saved _your_ mother's life."

Sara slapped her again. Starlet didn't flinch.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The deep growl coming from behind her was most welcome. Starlet glanced over her shoulder and saw Lance, glowering at Sara. In her heels, the other girl was of a height with him, but he had more muscle. He moved forward until he was standing next to her and leveled his most intimidating glare at Sara. "I said, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"You ought to tell Delaz to keep her at home," Sara sneered. "We don't want the likes of her in this school."

Lance's right hand clenched into a fist. Starlet grabbed his arm and dug in her heels. He shifted his glare to her. She ignored him and looked at Sara instead. "You can spend more money every day than I'll ever have, Sara. You can call me names, you can strike me, you may do whatever you like. But you'll never be able to do this." Starlet brushed her fingertips over the split lip Sara had given her, healing it instantly. "And we both know, that's all that will ever matter to you."

"You little--" Sara lunged at her.

Lance stepped between them and blocked Sara with his arm. "Leave her alone."

"You won't always be able to hide behind Delaz and Lance," Sara hissed.

"She's never hidden behind anyone. And to the likes of you, rich girl, it's _Healer_ Delaz." He waited till Sara stepped back, then slung a companionable arm around Starlet's shoulders. "C'mon, Star, Delaz wants us back early today."

Starlet obediently turned with him and headed toward the path that led out to the main road. "Bitch. Slut. Little rich idiot," she growled under her breath.

"You're better than her three ways," Lance remarked casually. Starlet glanced up at him, frowning slightly. He grinned. "Not a bitch, not a slut, and not an idiot," he clarified.

"Still...."

"Oh, Star, for the love of...You can't possibly mean to tell me you're actually listening to her?"

"What if she's right? All I have is--"

"All you have is a skill that most would kill for," Lance snapped. "You're just a healer, what good is that? You only possess an indispensable skill. And let's not forget that you're neither ugly nor stupid, so that's yet more that you have. Starlet, I love you but honestly, sometimes you have no more sense than a mouse!"

Stung, she stepped away and shrugged his arm off. "But I'm not that good at what I do," she said desperately. "Nina and Anya, Delaz, and you...you're all so much better than I am."

He stopped and looked at her, frowning. "So that's it," he mumbled. "Goddesses of Magic..."

Starlet turned and started walking. Lance took two long strides and was beside her again, his face drawn into a thoughtful frown. "It's Friday," he said out loud.

"No, really?" Starlet snapped.

"Star, the bitch act doesn't suit you. Cut it out."

She was truly tempted to hit him. Instead, she clenched her hands into fists until her nails cut her palms.

"Would you stop it?" The usual affectionate exasperation was back as he turned her hands palm up in his and inspected the cuts. Gold light crawled across her skin and the small bloody marks disappeared. "I can't always be around to fix you, silly," he added with a sigh.

"Nobody asked you to."

He muttered something she didn't quite catch, raking a hand through his hair. "Okay. How much homework have you got for the weekend?"

"Busywork," she said with an irritable flutter of her hand.

"Good. There's someone I want you to meet."

"Oh....you..._Lance!"_

He had to laugh at the aggrieved tone of voice and the sheer frustration she packed into his name. "Problems, Starry?"

"Don't call me that," she growled. "And yes, there are problems. Isn't it enough that Delaz is trying set me up with everybody she can find?"

Now he really laughed. "Well, that's not my intention in this case, though if it happens, who am I to argue? Anyway, what I intended was for you to meet my friend Blade."

"Right. And you say you're not setting me up."

"I'm not! Calm down, Starry." He deliberately used the nickname, and grinned when she snarled. "Oh, cut it out. Silly Star." He herded her up the steps to Delaz's house, and completely failed to notice the tall blonde behind them, who was glaring at them with deep-rooted anger.


End file.
